


That Place Where Reality Blurs

by DreamingIce



Series: 2012 iPod Shuffle ficlets [19]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Identity Swap, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingIce/pseuds/DreamingIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Small ficlets from Storybrooke (and the Enchanted Forest) throughout the series. Mostly looking at the Snowing family. </p><p>Originally written as part of a multifandom challenge in 2012 - 10 songs from my iPod on shuffle=5 ficlets from various fandoms each month, every month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Parental Failings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has no idea why she's still here. 
> 
> **Character:** Emma Swan  
>  **Timeframe:** Immediately post pilot ep  
>  **Theme:** Mother Knows Best – Tangled Soundtrack  
>  _Mother knows best,  
>  Listen to your mother,  
> It's a scary world out there.  
> Mother knows best,  
> One way or another,  
> Something will go wrong, I swear!_

Tossing around in the unfamiliar bed, she struggles to settle into sleep, the events of the last couple of days catching up with her and making her head spin.

She'd never really thought about what had happened to that baby boy from ten years ago. She had, maybe naively, placed her trust in the adoption agency to find him a good home away from the mess that was her life at that time. She'd certainly never thought about the possibility of the kid searching her out, let alone knocking at her door on her birthday wanting her help.

Emma let out another unhappy sigh. What drives a child to leave everything he knows to go on a wild goose chase to hunt down the woman who gave him up without so much as naming him? At first, she convinced herself she was taking the kid- _Henry_ -back to get him out of her life, and away from the memories, the responsibility.

Then Regina came into it. She control the poor kid's life to the extreme, and the lack of love or even comfort in his small world of Storybrooke struck a chord in her heart. She'd never thought of herself in any way, shape or form to be maternal. So why was she so reluctant to leave this boy?

Regina's manner that only she knows best for Henry...

Emma knows damn well parents make mistakes. Hell, she's never really gotten over the mistakes of her own parents. And she doesn't want to remember the things that the foster system taught her about bad parenting.

Henry was being crushed by his adopted mother. And she couldn't leave him now. She was far from perfect, but surely she could still try to protect him, couldn't she? Even though it terrifies her.

Turning back over again, she eventually settled into an uneasy sleep, her dreams haunted with shadowy figures of knights and running through the woods.

 


	2. Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry seems like the only good thing Emma has ever produced.
> 
>  **Characters:** Emma Swan, Henry Mills  
>  **Timeframe:** "A Land Without Magic"  
>  **Theme:** Albertine – Brooke Fraser  
>  _Now that I have seen  
>  I am responsible  
> Faith without deeds is dead  
> Now that I have held you in my own arms  
> I cannot let go_

It's a well known fact that Emma Swan is a messed up woman. She herself is painfully aware of this, and has built these walls around her emotions to protect herself.

This place is the first place she has felt... a sense of self. For once, she isn't the anonymous drifter. First, the town knew her as Henry's birth mother, then Graham's deputy, then now as Sheriff and Regina's rival. The walls have come down, almost without her realising it.

Henry has done this to her.

She never thought that this would be her. Being a mother (she actually feels like the title almost fits now).

When eighteen-year-old Emma Swan birthed her son, she was too afraid to see him, scared that she'd see the face of the man she had come to despise so much. But now, she looked at Henry, and she only saw this stubbornly  _good_  kid, with his beautiful crooked smile. He has a faith in people—in  _her_ —that astounds her.

" _You can't take them, something bad will happen!"_

" _Something bad has already happened."_

How had she produced this unfailingly good-hearted, untainted offspring?

He's so still and pale in the bed, Emma wants to shake him, see him move. Tears are running unbidden down her face. She can't lose him. She's just fought a goddamn  _dragon_. Henry  _cannot_   _be dead_.

He is the only truly good thing she's done in her whole life. He deserves to  _live._

"I love you, Henry," she chokes out as she kisses his forehead.


	3. Brothers Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He feels he should grieve for his twin, but he doesn't know where to begin. 
> 
> **Characters:** Prince James/Charming  
>  **Timeframe:** S1 FTL, after the events of 'The Shepherd'  
>  **Theme:** Hymn – Immediate Music

This whole thing makes him feel sick, truth be known.

He's barely had time to think about it all, but he already realises King George is far from sentimental.

He was brought in to replace his twin. The concept sits ill with him. He is now Prince James, heir to a throne he doesn't want, engaged to a woman he barely knows. (And accosted by an exile who he can't get out of his head, no matter how hard he tries.)

Has King George mourned his brother at all? Or was he too busy finding his adopted son's replacement? Worrying about the Gold the kingdom would receive from Midas?

He wanted to think that the King was mourning, for his brother's sake (otherwise, what kind of life had his twin known?), although he could see no such sentiment from the man externally.

James stared around at the opulent rooms he had been led to. It felt disrespectful to be here.

The strange thing, he mused, was that he had always felt like there was something... missing. He'd passed it off as waiting for that 'right girl', but suddenly he wondered if it was a brother he'd been missing all these years.

And now, they would never get to meet.

There are tears in his eyes when he snaps back into reality with the sound of a knock on the door.

He would have to find a way to mourn his brother. Somewhere no one else could see.


	4. Best Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma and Snow reach a quiet understanding.
> 
>  **Characters:** Emma Swan, Snow White  
>  **Timeframe:** Lady of the Lake [2x03]  
>  **Theme:** The Sad Man with the Box – DW S5 soundtrack

Snow is overwhelmed being in this room.

Emma can see it written all over her face, especially when she starts talking about all the things she would have done in this room.

Emma knows in her mind that Snow and Charming loved her, tried to give her what they had thought would be the best chance (and really, it's not like they knew what sort of world it was they were going to, so her lingering resentment was kinda illogical). But in her heart, there was still traces of doubt.

It was moments like this that reminded her that she'd lost just as much as anyone in Storybrooke. That she had been loved so deeply for such a short time, and then lost. She finds the welling of emotion in her chest uncomfortable.

The thought occurs to Emma that she has no right to sulk and be mad at her parents. Didn't she give up Henry so he could have his best chance too?

But reconciling her head and her heart is not that simple.

She has had to rely on herself for so long. She isn't used to having someone put her needs above theirs unconditionally, and it scares her a little.

But she finds, even as an adult, she's still craving it.

Just as much as she can read that Snow craves being able to be her mother.

Maybe this will work. Even with the messed-up aspects.


End file.
